Commodore: A2024

Connection: Video Socket (Amiga 23pin)

A 15" Amiga monitor, a 19" version may have existed
by this has not been confirmed. The A2024 is a monochrome monitor with
four greyscales in A2024 mode and eight grey-scales in conventional
modes. In addition to the native resolutions it also provides 1024x1024
on PAL screens and 1024x800 on NTSC screens. There are both PAL and
NTSC versions of the monitor, although both models support PAL and NTSC
frequencies if adjusted correctly. The monitor is quite unique in that
it contains an internal framebuffer which is controlled via the RGBI
lines of the video port, which means it probably won't work on anything
but an Amiga. As there's no pixel clock, the exact sample rate must be
fine tuned at the back of the monitor, much in the same way you do with
scandoublers and flicker fixers. The monitor manages to achieve the
high resolutions by effectively buffering four Amiga screens, whereby
each screen displays a portion of the overall picture. Because of this,
the "effective" refresh rate decreases to around 10-15Hz (software
configurable), whereby the 10Hz mode uses 16 colour low-res and the
15Hz mode uses 8 colour hi-res. It seems that the monitor by be able to
individually refresh the separate quadrants of the screen, as the
quadrant which contains the mouse cursor appears to be updated more
frequently. This may not be technically true, but perhaps just an
illusion. The monitor itself runs at a vertical frequency of either
50Hz or 60Hz with a fixed horizontal frequency of 60Khz. NTSC modes
tend to suffer less from flicker compared to the PAL modes.